


spirit voices

by pocky_slash



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, First Meetings, Ghost Hunters, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2713790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's out of character for Erik to stop and give a ride to a stranger on a lonely road, but the man is strikingly attractive and Erik doesn't have anywhere else to be. It's not a bother--at least not until the boxes of odd equipment start coming out at the house in the middle of nowhere that sets Erik's teeth on edge. At least not until the closest motel is long-shuttered and Erik finds himself driving back to the looming house in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>It's possible Erik is starting to wish he had driven right past...</p>
            </blockquote>





	spirit voices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ACandleLit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACandleLit/gifts).



> I've been wanting to write a ghosthunters AU forever, so thank you for the excuse! Thanks to [redacted] for the beta. Don't be surprised if more things pop up in this universe--if only I had three more months to write the hundreds of thousands of words of adventures I have in my head!

The first time Erik laid eyes on Charles Xavier, he was standing at the side of the road next to a car with its hood propped up. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his hands were on his hips and he was glaring at the car engine.

He was really unbearably lovely.

Erik didn't care much from lovely. He cared mostly about getting as close as he could to New York before nightfall, when he promised his mother he would stop at a motel. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and he should have put his foot on the gas to try and clock in as many miles as he could.

Instead, he found himself slowing down.

He didn't know what had overcome him, why he was bothering. Erik was coolly civil to acquaintances and sharply disinterested in strangers. He wasn't one for good deeds, certainly not when he had places to be, and although the man was lovely, he wasn't so desperate for a bed partner that he was lowered to picking them up on the side of the road.

He was good with machines though, Erik, and his mother would want him to stop and...something about the man's exasperation with the car was endearing enough that his own had rolled to a stop a few yards ahead of it without conscious thought on Erik's part.

He just sat for a moment, shaking his head and wondering what had come over himself, before he opened the door and approached the other car.

"Problem?" he asked.

"I--well, I assume," the man said. His accent was British and cultured. His smile was charming. His face was flushed with the heat. "I'm rubbish with cars. It was quite kind of you to stop, you're the only one so far."

"Well," Erik said, "then it's a good thing I did. It doesn't seem like this road gets much traffic."

"Quite good," the man said. "I really can't tell you how grateful I am. Truly. I have an appointment about fifteen miles away yet and I really must get there before dark and normally I travel with my sister, but she's gotten out of the family business, as it were, and there's a client waiting for me and--"

"Shush," Erik said. "Let's have a look."

The man snapped his mouth shut and colored further as Erik peered into the innards of the car. He crept up behind Erik, staring over his shoulder. Erik tried to ignore it as he inspected the engine, though it didn't take long to figure out the problem.

"Your fanbelt's snapped," Erik told him. "Your engine overheated. You're lucky it didn't blow up, from the looks of it."

Erik turned around, right into the man's personal space. His disappointment was obvious--he frowned with his whole body.

"Oh no," he said. "Oh no, that's...rather bad news."

The same strange urge that had overtaken him before seemed to be back, because before Erik could stop himself he said, "Where are you going? I could give you a lift."

It was almost worth it for the smile alone. The man's eyes shone when he was pleased.

"I couldn't dare ask," he said. "You've been so helpful already. It would be a terrible imposition."

"It seemed important to you to get there tonight," Erik said. "I'm just headed to the nearest motel. Dropping you somewhere fifteen miles away shouldn't be a problem." 

"You're a saint," the man said. "You're--well, I can't quite explain what a difference this will make for my client. You're wonderful. Fantastic. Amazing." 

Horrified, Erik found himself on the verge of blushing.

"It's fine," he said gruffly.

"It's splendid," the man insisted. "Oh my, I've not even introduced myself. My name is Charles Xavier." Xavier offered his hand, though he was still so close to Erik that his proffered hand almost brushed Erik's chest.

"Erik Lehnsherr," Erik said. He took Xavier's hand and shook it. "Get your things, let's load them into my car. We should get on the road if we want to get anywhere before sunset, Mr. Xavier."

"Oh, please call me Charles," Xavier said. Erik belatedly noticed their hands were still clasped together and suddenly couldn't help but read a little more into Xavier's slightly crooked smile.

***

Xavier--Charles--had been headed to a house in the middle of nowhere. It should have been quite idyllic, sitting as it was on a small lake, surrounded by picturesque western Massachusetts countryside, but something about the place set Erik's teeth on edge. It was like the whole house was on the wrong frequency. 

The last rays of the sun were peaking over the horizon when they rolled to a stop in front of the house, and Charles rushed out of the car to speak with the worried couple on the front porch. Erik, still behind the wheel, peered over his shoulder at the boxes of equipment now taking up the back seat. He knew they were metal--different types of machines, some he wasn't wholly familiar with as well as several cameras and audio recorders. Radio equipment, maybe? Erik couldn't be sure. Charles had been cheerfully vague about his reasons for coming out the house, his job, and why he was in Massachusetts. They had mostly talked about New York--Charles was from the suburbs and had done some schooling at Columbia. He was equally vague on what he had studied, though. Erik let him get away with a lot for that smile.

With a sigh, Erik left the car and opened the backseat, careful not to jostle any of the boxes as he lifted them out. He might as well help Charles load it into the house; the quicker he was done with that, the quicker he could be back on the road.

Charles met him halfway between the car and the porch.

"What is all of this?" Erik asked him, hefting a audio recorder and a wooden box with an unknown machine in it.

"Just...observational tools," Charles said. The blush was back. "Thank you for all your help. I really don't know how I can repay you." 

They locked eyes. Erik thought if he were to suggest the repayment he had in mind, Charles would probably be amenable.

"Let me help you load in first," Erik said. "Then I'll get directions to the nearest motel."

The dining room quickly filled up with cameras and lights and recorders and boxes of things Erik didn't recognize. The husband helped too, and they had the car empty by the time twilight was upon them. There were questions on the tip of Erik's tongue, but he held them back as he surveyed their work.

"I should get going," he told them. "I need to get to a motel yet."

"Oh, you could at least stay for dinner," the wife said. "It was so kind of you to bring the professor out here and it's nearly an hour to the nearest hotel. Get some food in you before the drive, I insist."

An hour. He held back a curse.

"I appreciate that, but I'd best get on the road if it's an hour," he said. "If I could use your phone, though?"

"Of course," the wife said. "It's back this way."

She lead him towards the kitchen, and the moment he cleared the room, he saw Charles step closer to the husband and start to speak quietly and rapidly, gesturing towards the machines.

Erik really wanted answers. He had a feeling he wasn't going to get them.

He thanked the wife and used the phone to dial his mother, grateful that his host retreated nearly as soon as he lifted the phone. It was the sixties, sure, but a stranger speaking German in her kitchen would probably raise the hackles of even the least suspicious of housewives, even if he was only assuring his mother that he'd get a full night's sleep before attempting the rest of the drive, and he'd be home tomorrow in time to take her round Mrs. Mertz's. 

When he got off the phone, Charles was standing in the doorway to the kitchen holding a notepad.

"I absolutely insist that you give me your address," he said, holding out the notepad and pen. "No arguments. I cannot stress how thankful I am, and how important it was that I get here. I'll send you a note or a gift or a dinner invitation."

"Dinner invitation?" Erik asked, raising his eyebrows and taking the notepad.

"To show my gratitude," Charles said, and winked.

The wink fueled Erik through goodbyes and the long drive down the dark country road that led back to the highway. It fueled him for an hour down the deserted highway. It even fueled him, as he sat on the hood of the car and stared at the darkened, closed motel, and decided that his best bet was to drive all the way back to the creepy house on the lake and beg to sleep on the couch or the floor.

(The wink made Erik think that there might even be room in Charles' bed.)

It was a long drive. It was a dark drive. Erik had been driving since eight am and he was fucking tired, but he pushed past the exhaustion, squinted in the low light, and turned off the highway towards the house. He parked outside, at the end of the long country road, and stared up at it. All told, it had been almost three hours since he left. It was nearing midnight, and he expected the house to be dark.

It wasn't. Every light was burning, and someone was screaming.

"Fuck," he muttered. "Fuck that wink." And ran from the car towards the house.

The scene inside was surreal. Doors were opening and slamming shut. A record player in the living room was blaring out an Elvis record. Something in the air was _wrong_ \--Erik could feel a shift in the tenor of the room, like the currents weren't running the right way. He followed the screaming up the stairs and froze at the top. The wife was lying on the floor--no, sliding across the floor, as if being pulled by her foot. She was screaming at the top of her lungs while her husband darted after her, trying to grab her and swearing like a sailor.

In the midst of it all was Charles, commanding and looming, for all that he was on the shorter side, standing in the center of the hall and bellowing Latin he was reading from a book, with his other hand pressed against his temple. He didn't even seem to notice Erik, but the wife did.

"Help me!" she screamed, and Erik could just make out the form tugging her around, could feel the currents of the room bent and twisted and tangled in the shape of...something. It was hectic and shifting shape. It made Erik feel like his hair must be standing on end. His fillings hurt.

"Be gone, creature!" Charles shouted, and the--the energy, the shape, the _presence_ dropped the woman, who shrieked again, and moved towards Charles--

Erik didn't think. He reached out and pulled at the right fields, the right currents, the right frequencies, and for just a moment, the presence seemed to scatter into a hundred pieces. It was just for a moment though, just enough time for Erik to take another breath before it regrouped, invisible except to Erik's extra sense, and reared back--

Charles threw down the book and put both hands at his temples.

" _Be gone!_ " he bellowed, and--it was.

It was like someone flicked a switch. The room went back to normal. The ringing in Erik's ears retreated. The energy had completely disappeared.

"Oh god oh god oh god!" The woman was sobbing, curled up on the ground, and her husband quickly went to her, gathering her in his arms and hushing her. 

"It's okay, it's okay," he said. "It's gone now, Lillian, it's gone. Right, professor?"

Charles was staring at Erik. Erik stared right back.

"It's gone," Charles confirmed without breaking his gaze. "Don't worry, Mrs. Clark, the demon is gone for good."

Demon. For fuck's sake. Erik licked his lips, but he didn't know what to say.

"Coffee," Charles said decisively. "Mr. Lehnsherr, why don't we go make some coffee?"

Erik followed Charles down the stairs, mute with curiosity and with the bone deep feeling that his life was about to change irrevocably.

***

They were quiet through the coffee, as Mr. Clark tended to his wife's minor wounds and Mrs. Clark cried tears of relief. Erik did the dishes to keep from feeling useless, while Charles gave the Clarks an overview on what had happened using words like "exorcism" and "banished" and "demon." The grateful Clarks retired to their bedroom and offered Charles and Erik any of the guest rooms on the second floor, the floor they'd been avoiding due to the--the "demon."

Erik followed Charles up the stairs. He followed him down the hall. He followed him into the last bedroom at the end of the hall, then slammed the door shut, and kissed him hard enough to knock him back into the door.

Charles gasped into his mouth, but he didn't protest. In fact, his hands immediately went to the buttons of Erik's shirt while Erik fumbled with his belt and they both made quite the effort to climb inside the other.

They didn't even manage to take the dust cloth off the bed, which was probably for the best given the state of it once they were finished.

Even the sex wasn't enough to calm Erik's questions, though, and Charles looked far from sleep himself, so instead of nodding off once they'd cleaned off and discarded the dust cloth, Erik found himself propped up on his elbow, staring up at Charles who was sitting crosslegged with his back against the headboard, explaining how an atheist with a PhD had gotten himself into the exorcism business.

"I've always been able to feel it," he told Erik. "I can feel people, living people--how they feel and the tenor of their thoughts and their...presence. But it's different with the dead and the...otherworldly, for lack of a better word. I can feel them. I can tell they're there, and I can...sort of communicate with them, but it feels different. I don't know how to explain it. It sounds crazy, I know."

"It doesn't," Erik admitted. "I can--my mother has always called it 'my gift.' I'm good with machines. I can feel how they work, all the wires and pathways inside, I can feel how they connect and tell when they're on. I can feel the currents moving through them. I can tell different types of metal apart. And I've always been able to feel when there was...something else in the room. Something that's not supposed to be there. Almost like the absence of something, I suppose. That's the best way I can describe it. When I was a boy, I would talk to them. My mother assumed they were my imaginary friends. I suppose she thought that after the war...well. We all had our eccentricities."

Charles touched his wrist, just a few short inches down from the tattoo on Erik's forearm. He offered no other condolences, though, and said instead, "That's fascinating. I'd imagine you're picking up on the electromagnetic frequencies of the world around you. I use machines that pick up on those frequencies when I'm trying to track spirits within a house." 

His thumb lingered on Erik's pulse, brushing gently back and forth.

"I wonder," he said, without looking up, "if you would think it very forward of me to ask you to join me?"

"Become a ghosthunter?" Erik asked, smirking. Charles squeezed his wrist.

"I prefer 'occultist,'" he said. "There's not really a word, yet, for what I do, but that's the one I'm favoring at the moment. Helping people, really--going out into the world and helping people who are being tormented by things they can't explain."

"How noble," Erik said dryly. Charles sighed and shook his head, but he was still smiling.

"I think there's a little bit of something noble in you," Charles said. "I can tell. I can feel it."

Erik didn't think there was anything noble in him--he gave up anything close in the years after the war as he mourned his father and sister, as he crossed the ocean to a country where he barely spoke the language, as he struggled to keep himself and his mother out of harm's way. Erik's life was closed off and solitary. He didn't care about helping others. He didn't need to change the world.

And yet, he found himself turning Charles grip against him, tugging him down to the bed as he murmured, "Let's find out."

Charles grinned.

"No promises," Erik whispered as he slid his hands under Charles' too-hastily replaced t-shirt.

"Of course not," Charles agreed. 

"A few weeks," Erik said. "Maybe a month. I'm curious."

"Of course you are," Charles said.

Erik kissed him to keep him from continuing that knowing smile.

Noble. Hardly. Erik would never be noble. For now, though, it was worth it to investigate, to sate his curiosity. A few weeks. Maybe a month.

Charles wrapped his arms around Erik and pushed him back into the pillows, warm and grinning and alive.

Maybe a few months, then.


End file.
